Time to end some paradigms, and to "think outside the b Posted on: Fri Jul 09, 2004 6:55 pm

My financial suggestions have little to do with the immediate future
of private manned space-travel; instead, I'm think of 10 to 20 years down the road.
For the next 10 years, private [and commercial] manned space-travel
will be "suborbital", unless you could afford the 20 million price-tag the
Russians offer to orbit "tourists" like Dennis Tito.

(1) But what about financing private [commercial] manned orbital spaceflight 10 to 20 years from now?
(2) And what about private [commercial] manned missions to do a simple
figure-8 loop around the moon in 20 years?
(3) And how much will it cost?

Answer?...A simple figure-8 loop around the moon and back to Earth
by a pair of space-passengers will be very expensive. I can't see
such a mission going for less than 200 million dollars [some of you are laughing!...Some of you are saying that private manned moon-circling mission will cost at least 500 million dollars].

Should private space groups, and small commercial spacetravel firms
fall back on the government for funding?
I say, why not?
[Some of you must be shocked by my comment! Some of you detest the
idea of relying on ANY government funding!]
But I REPEAT, why not?...Why not a paradigm shift in our thinking?
We don't have to rely on government TAX money!

When governments pay for expensive projects [billion dollars plus], like Olympic Games facilities, around the world, they often AVOID tax-money
to pay for such things...they instead use....
lottery money, commemorative postage stamps, commemorative coinsissued, etc...

Those are some of my suggestions...And below are some more....

What about the internet?...video-game contracts?...television-special broadcast rights [maybe upto 100 million dollars]?...documentary movie deals [IMAX]?...newspaper & magazine story rights?...book-publishing deals?...spaceship toy manufacturing contracts [MATTEL, TONKA, LEGO]?... etc...
The sum of such funding could add up to HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of dollars...

why compare the amount of money to pay for private space travels by private spacecrafts to the 44 million dollars Tto had to pay for travelling by the russian Soyuz? Soyuz isn't reusable and much bigger.

Why not wait for what will go on with SpaceShipOne and all the other private spacecrafts? May be they will pull to the private space travel branch the money needed for getting to orbit.

For a pair of tourists to do a figure-8 loop around the moon?
The obstacles are extremely large; both financial and technological.

For a manned moon mission, you need hundreds of technicians,
engineers and workers...and they can't all be "volunteers".
That means a a lot of money to pay them.
And the moon rocket would require speeds off Mach 35.
Burt Rutan's SSI reached only Mach 3.5, ten times slower, and 100
times less energy.
The moon rocket will cost a lot more money [hundreds of millions], and require longer to build,
test, certify.

You make a good point about the costs of space travel, especially when talking about tourism to the moon, etc. However, I believe that the spaceship technology we use today has much, much more potential for growth, through invention and innovation. We need not rely on government grants or programs to turn space tourism into a healthy industry, we need only to continue in the pursuits that we're already doing. As the technology gets better and better, the price will go far down.

Governments are great at funding insanely expensive projects and bossing people around, but I think that if all the companies were to begin working with (for) the governments, that they would be beholden to them. To some degree or another. And this would possibly have a negative impact on the innovative environment in which the current private space industry is thriving.

For use in a dispute in a german fore I've been looking for private orbital activities of XPRIZE teams. Five firms are to be listed:

Interorbital Systems (getting to orbit by manned vehicle is planned in 2006 )

Advent Launch Services

Bristol Spaceplanes

Kelly Space & Technologies

Lone Star Space Express Corporation

These five firms seem to be able to get to orbit at the costs within the coming few years to be expected. They seem to be able to meet the technological requirements too.

So the obstacles to reach the orbit might be the ticket price only. But Interorbital plans to use its suborbital vehicle later as the orbital stage - may be the ticket price won't be higher than three times the suborbital price.

The obstacles to the moon are much higher and more difficult to estimate. May be an entire industry will be going to orbit and to the moon because of Bush' s plans and the new Crew Exploration Vehicle to be started first in 2013. The CEV will be very modular, reusable and concpted not by NASA but by private industry firms. All this together may reduce the costs of private moon travles to a great amount.

Without all this the obstacles to the moon indeed are very hard to manage.

Apropos the Modularity of the CEV - wouldn't be that a chance to reduce the financial requirements of private space travels especially to the moon?

Firms offering private space travels might provide modules only instead of whole spacecrafts. This modules might be included in the CEV at some price to be payed to its owner(s) as well as in private spacecrafts if they are modular too.

For use in a dispute in a german fore I've been looking for private orbital activities of XPRIZE teams. Five firms are to be listed:

Interorbital Systems (getting to orbit by manned vehicle is planned in 2006 )

Advent Launch Services

Bristol Spaceplanes

Kelly Space & Technologies

Lone Star Space Express Corporation

These five firms seem to be able to get to orbit at the costs within the coming few years to be expected. They seem to be able to meet the technological requirements too.

none of those have a serious shot at orbit i think, and only 2 of them are actually real. yes i know interorbital says testing will start in 2006, but even if by some miracle that succeeds, their design really is pretty unrealistic (look in the thread on it and make your own conclusion), and i haven't heard anything from kelly space in a long long time. there are 3 firms with a realistic and likely shot at orbit, and they are scaled obviously, armadillo (again pretty obvious), and starchaser with a realistic business plan that has them in orbit in about 10 years.